Television viewing is part of daily life for many people. Certain networks that provide video content may have limitations that lead to an undesirable television viewing experience. For example, viewers may experience channel change latency after switching channels, as video content of a new channel is sent to and buffered by a receiving device. Channel change servers may be installed in a network to reduce the channel change latency by providing an initial unicast stream of a requested channel to a receiving device requesting a channel change to populate the buffer so that the requested channel can be quickly displayed. After a multicast join to the channel for the receiving device is implemented, the unicast stream may be stopped. Channel change servers may receive significant loads when many change channel requests are received (e.g., at approximately fifteen minute intervals when commercials are shown, when programs end, or both). Also, the unicast streams may impose considerable load on the network during the times when the many change channel requests are implemented.